Yang Yang, the greasy overlord is really outdated

Author | Fu Sihan

In the recent idol drama market, Yang Yang "failed".

The white-clothed school grass that once attracted the yearning of countless girls in 2016's "A Slight Smile is Alluring", has become a new spokesperson for the "greasy" genre in the hit drama "My Human Fireworks".

It is not so much that Yang Yang has changed, but that with the growth of girls in front of the screen, the judging standards of romance idol dramas are entering a new stage.

Open the film and television area of station B, and you will see calm expressions that are incompatible with the pink bubbles of idol dramas: third-rate hegemony always plays hooligans, first-class hegemony always counter-hegemony; Stupid fools white sweet, anti-killing elites despise the chain ...

Stills from "A Slight Smile is Alluring"

Here, unlike short videos that spoil the fate of the "little beauty and handsome" in three or five minutes, the film and television commentary uses sociology, anthropology, and psychology knowledge to "roll" out of a new realm. These UP masters are generally young girls, and after their delicate disassembly, the characters and plots of childhood classic idol dramas are put into a grid of terms such as patriarchal structure, identity ethics, elitism and so on, showing a clear texture direction. Perhaps for the first time, the audience realized that there were so many social expressions hidden behind the ancient blood.

So, how did the fan girl in front of the screen in the past raise the scalpel that accurately dissected the boss? How does the almost pedantic film and television discussion reflect the core audience group of idol dramas - the dialogue between millennial girls who grow up and their ideal love and even their own world?

01

Justify the name of "Mary Sue"

"I have loved watching idol dramas since I was a child, and one of the reasons is that I like to watch handsome guys and beautiful women fall in love, especially those who are more bloody." Rosie, 23, said.

"My ideal self is completely Cheng Youqing, and watching "I May Not Love You" several times is for her. She walks in the office building with a very dashing posture, is comfortable at work, can always give support to others in interpersonal relationships, and Li Daren, who pays so much attention to and protects herself. Cassia said, 22.

Stills from "I Probably Won't Love You"

People who grew up in 1990-2000 are a generation immersed in popular culture such as TVB Hong Kong dramas, Taiwanese idol dramas, and Japanese anime. As "TV children", girls born around the millennium share the same memories despite being in the south and north of the world: "You are the wind and I am sand" every summer vacation, the enviable clothes room of "Princess Little Sister", and the big tears that fell when Chen Xinyi turned away from Ji Cunxi... Idol dramas decorate the hearts of a generation of girls, and they are often entangled with labels of "superficial", "vulgar" and even "brain-dead".

Some girls who came from the golden age of idol dramas and now begin to know and think about the world independently are determined to tear off such labels.

"Many viewers who miss idol dramas may be ashamed to mention that they secretly rebrushed "Prank Kiss" and "The Prince Turns into a Frog" late at night. A drama still has a group of loyal audiences who are frequently missed after many years, and it should not be just emotional filters, they must have the vitality that cannot be washed away by the big waves of sand. We have an urge to dig into the shining points of these shows that are overshadowed by the shame of today's 'Mary Sue'. "Station B up lord" parsley is green again" said. (Mary Sue: refers to the heroine who is "perfect" in literary works but cannot exist in reality, and is often considered to reflect a narcissistic state of mind.) ）

A still from "The Prince Turns into a Frog"

"Parsley is Green Again" is composed of two girls - Xiangqing and Youqing, whose names come from the two classic idol drama roles played by Lin Aichen: Yuan Xiangqin in "Prank Kiss" and Cheng Youqing in "I May Not Love You". This is an account that has been operating since April 2022, with 205,000 fans and a total of more than 11 million views on 22 film and television commentary videos, and "idol drama characters are right" is an important theme of his works. Their account profile says: Idol dramas are not the bottom of the contempt chain, bad dramas are.

In the Taiwan puppet "Next Stop Happiness", the love between the protagonist Liang Mucheng and Ren Guangxi can be called "dog blood": Liang Mucheng faces the threat of being sexually assaulted by his stepfather, falls in love with Ren Guangxi, who helps him win back justice, and tricks him into breaking up and hiding the birth of a child because he saved the terminally ill Guangxi, until he met the amnesiac Guangxi again with his son six years later, and only then did he go around and solve the misunderstanding.

A still from "Next Stop Happiness"

Parsley and Youqing fully affirmed Mu Cheng's personality charm as a "tough little white flower", "No matter how deep her life is trapped, she can fish herself up, and even have the spare power to arrange the lives of close people." At the same time, they also saw that "a person who can stabilize the basics of life with so few cards in her hand will have fewer resources to use, and her vision and choices will definitely be relatively single." Therefore, Mu Cheng inevitably fell into a kind of 'for your good' tyranny. This autocracy is the opposite of her strength. ”

As for the relationship between Ren Guangxi and Liang Mucheng, they wrote: "Where is Ren Guangxi Bai Yueguang? For the first time, Ren Guangxi stood from a man's perspective and saw the attributes of a beautiful girl who was regarded as a sexual resource as a human being. He loved her, but before he did, he saw her as an equal. When most of the male protagonists of idol dramas that show love are more like a god who gives alms downward and reduces dimensionality blows, Ren Guangxi just gets along with Mu Cheng as a 'person'. He told girls watching idol dramas that the real ideal male protagonist is not to spoil the female protagonist, but is willing to accompany you to work together to create a world where both men and women can have the dignity of living, have control over their own bodies and lives, and can exchange down-to-earth efforts for what they deserve. ”

At other times, "Parsley is Green Again" tries to reveal the value core of idol dramas at a deeper level. In "Prank Kiss", the setting of "genius" Jiang Naoki and "stupid" Yuan Xiangqin has recently been complained of as "dwarf female protagonist, male protagonist PUA".

"Prank Kiss"

What Xiangqing and Youqing want to argue is that this drama stands on the opposite side of elitism and hides the idea of tolerating minorities.

They cite the analysis of meritocracy in "The Arrogance of the Elite": if economic rewards and social resources are only distributed according to individual merit, on the surface, it is a fair distribution of "the able get more", but ignoring that talent, talent, family and other factors are not fair in themselves, and the achievements of the "elite" cannot be completely attributed to individual efforts, and this logic will lead to the promotion of winners and contempt for losers.

"The preciousness of Xiangqin lies in the fact that no matter how poor its factory settings are, it has the backbone to demand the world's respect for us, not to be humble and unassuming, and the courage to look up and pursue dazzling things; Naoki reflects on and breaks through his elite circle, making it his career goal to be a pediatrician who is 'needed by others'. The core of anti-elitism is to ask everyone in society who has achieved achievements to reflect on the lucky factors in their own success, so as to remain in awe of their own achievements and empathize with the misfortunes of others. ”

Xiangqin counterattack / "Prank Kiss" stills

Therefore, "Evil Kiss" is essentially a "rather idealistic story of two people who strive to tear off society's definition and label of them, and finally break through their respective circles and disciplines, and the threads of life converge."

"Our Taiwan puppet series is called 'Correct the Name of the Character', but this 'Correct Name' does not emphasize standing in a square position, but seeing the specific blood of a character. Compared with many idol dramas now, no matter whether the theme and values of ancient idol dramas are high or high, deep or not, their characters at least live in a complete and self-justifying story. Although the settings of the overbearing president and the kind white flower may be outdated now, we believe that the "living people" deserve to be seen, and some of them can be discussed interestingly across the ages. Parsley and Youqing said.

02

The echo of the screen

"A man was thirteen or fourteen in the summer and picked up a gun on the road. He pulled the trigger and no one died or was injured. Later, when he was thirty or older, he was walking down the road and heard a faint wind behind him. He stopped and turned away, the bullet hitting his eyebrow. ”

In Stetson's "Me and the Temple of Earth", there is such a passage about an unexpected encounter with his young self when adults look back. For girls who grew up watching idol dramas, the same screen always echoes at different times of life, and the stone that knocks on the screen is a constant change in their cognition.

"Over the years, Qiong Yao's works have often been negatively evaluated, so I was pleasantly surprised to see the analysis of Qiong Yao's drama by Little Fox in the Plains, and I felt that 'I am not the only one who likes to return pearls'." Di'er, born in 1993, said.

A still from "Another Curtain of Dreams"

The plain little fox in her mouth is a B-station film and television commentary "newcomer", who submitted the first video of the account in March this year, and now has 120,000 fans and a total of nearly 10 million views. Character analysis around Qiong Yao's works such as "Huan Zhu Gege" and "Deep Love" is his recent main series.

Di'er is a veteran fan of Qiong Yao's works, and since the first grade of primary school, "Huan Zhu Gege" has been her favorite film and television work. After going to college, she and her friends, who were studying Chinese, bought Qiong Yao's novels to read, and found that their Chinese was very delicate, and the character plot was full of tension, and she was very surprised why Qiong Yao was so violently misinterpreted.

"Now many people use the logic of palace fighting that celebrates power and pursues privilege to criticize "Returning the Pearl". Qiong Yao put the emperor on an equal footing, but critics of Qiong Yao instead regarded the emperor as the superior of the power structure. ”

A still from "Huan Zhu Gege"

The original intention of Pingyuan Little Fox's interpretation of Qiong Yao's works also comes from restoring the "neglected expression of Qiong Yao". As the times changed, Xiaoyanzi and Ziwei were defined by some commentators as "troublemakers" who were incompatible with the court system. She posted a video titled "Women will have many identities in their lives, but not herself" to disassemble the dilemma faced by Xiaoyanzi from the perspective of "identity ethics". Little Swallow was originally an orphan without social status, so he ignored the constraints of etiquette and religion and was dashing and comfortable; In the later period, the palace people tried to domesticate her as "daughter", "daughter-in-law", "girlfriend" and "wife", so she always seemed to be full of foreign and substandard, and while completing the class jump, she was also bound to the point of almost suffocation by identity ethics.

At the end of the video, the plain fox says: "If we go back to 1998 again, we will still like the little swallow; It's just that we grew up, we had our own social identity, we began to talk about ethics and abide by the rules, and we began to wonder how Xiaoyanzi dared to make trouble in the palace, how she could kill her children twice in a row, and how she was worthy of loving Xinjue Luo Yongqi. What a real problem. And these problems are Lafayette's problems, the little swallow has not changed, it is us who have changed. ”

A still from "Huan Zhu Gege"

Why do you start from the sociological term "identity ethics" to the interpretation of film and television characters? In fact, this concept did not initially appear in the mind of the little fox of the plains, she just wondered why the same little swallow encountered such a huge turn in the third part. After delving into the plot, she noticed that the people around her were placing the "identity" of traditional women on Xiaoyanzi, and found an outlet for the interpretation of "identity ethics".

In the introduction of academic theory, the plain fox and parsley have a tacit understanding.

Born around 1995, they either took systematic sociological courses during their university years or were exposed to sociological ideas represented by feminism on the Internet, which is also a feature that is almost common to their follower group.

"Public actors have become more educated, and our group of college-educated women has gone from 'TV kids' to a spontaneous and conscious reflector, examiner, looking at the pop culture products that they have been exposed to since childhood." The critique of patriarchy, the pursuit of women's self-reliance and individual liberation, and the reflection on the stigmatized language of women are quite progressive. These expressions, of course, are very closely intertwined with feminism in today's Internet space. Zhuyan, a doctoral student who is also a millennial and engaged in media culture research, said.

"Prank Kiss" stills

Under the refraction of the theoretical prism, the personality, world view, and behavioral motivation of the characters in the ancient idol drama have been clearly explained, and the essence of the relationship between the characters is enough to trigger the audience's thinking.

When watching "I May Not Love You", Cassia is often uncomfortable with the mode of getting along between the heroine Youqing and the "overlord" boyfriend Ding Liwei, but it is difficult to say why. After parsley's green analysis, she realized that Ding Liwei's "romance" was based on male possessiveness and machismo tacitly approved by society. "After understanding this, I suddenly realized that I could 'graduate' from this TV series because I now have the ability to recognize romance and compulsion."

03

"Ripples of Women"

"In the 'Idol Drama True Name' series, we specifically see the character's personality, circumstances and choices, so as to understand the character's behavior logic and find the proposition on ta. Sometimes we see the same kind, more often we see the other. Different people get different experiences, inspirations, reflections or empathies, and we want to provide a more feminine, very 'parsley and green' perspective. Parsley and Youqing said.

In their comment section, discussions of the plot and characters are often lively and in-depth, and these views are in favor, supplement, and contradict, but all in a friendly and peaceful tone.

A still from "The Cultivation of a Common Girl"

Xiangqin and Youqing mentioned that when they analyzed the role of "grandma" in "The Cultivation of a Common Woman", they believed that as a woman, they formed a shadow-like survival philosophy in the face of discipline. The comment area complements the concept of "separation of name and reality" mentioned by Fei Xiaotong in "Native China", which aptly explains the behavior pattern of grandma in rural society.

In another video, they pointed out that Cheng Youqing "lives between two values, his pursuit of life is very contemporary, and his aesthetic of love is very outdated."

One message lamented, "Don't accuse the previous generation of women of not being avant-garde enough, it is they who go forward on their basis, so that we can be more avant-garde than them." Many people also quoted this high praise comment when retweeting the video. This made them feel that the comments of the audience constituted the complete expression of the work.

"The best thing about Pingyuan Little Fox is that she does not judge women, whether she agrees or not, she can put herself in the shoes of those women to understand the choices they make, even if it is the 'Aunt Xue' in "Deep Love", or the opposite of the protagonist in "Huanzhu 3"." Flute Review.

Aunt Xue / stills from "Deep Rain"

"I'm a woman, so I naturally empathize with those female characters, their pain, their upbringing, some of their personal struggles. When I, as a woman, expressed the points I felt, I found that many female viewers in the comment area empathized with the stories of the characters with me. In fact, it was me and my audience that formed the current 'Focus on Women' style of expression. Little Fox said.

Often girls tell her that after watching her videos, they understand how they should make choices. "Although I don't know what kind of predicament they are in right now, maybe one of the hundreds of thousands of viewers in each video learns through these videos, 'I'm in a similar predicament to the characters in the show, and I understand what I'm going to do.'" This feedback made me feel as if I was actually holding a woman's hand and actually helping her. ”

The feminist experience has systematically expressed the discomfort that Little Fox once felt, like a line, sewing up the scattered emotional experience in the past and establishing complete logical thinking. Once logical thinking is established, she is no longer in the uncomfortable situation she once had, because she "fully understands what its theoretical logic is."

Some viewers once thought that her view of Xiaoyanzi was too idealistic, saying that people are too self-centered and have a bad life in her husband's house. "If I only analyze the character of Little Swallow, I might really be guided like this: If Little Swallow changes herself, she may not 'lose' in the competition with Zhihua. But when I use 'identity ethics' to disassemble all of Xiaoyanzi's experiences, I find that this is not her problem at all. When I fundamentally deny the identity ethic of 'wife', I can get rid of the bondage of identity. ”

A still from "Huan Zhu Gege"

She was first introduced to feminist knowledge from a women's podcast called "Random Fluctuations" and has since discovered a new world. Like ripples, the female-dominated communicator pushes her to become the next female communicator, and brings the female perspective to more people.

In the study of fan culture, there is such a classic academic positioning: academic fans. As fans, researchers conduct research within the group from the perspective of insider identity, and form writing accordingly.

"Much of the feminist research and writing is even more so, reflecting on women's own interests and experiences. With the improvement of the level of popular culture and education, traditions that were originally confined to authors' circles or academic circles are now spreading to more people. Bamboo salt, who observed this phenomenon, said.

"Barbie" stills

After summarizing the thinking perspective of "identity ethics", Little Fox tried to use it to reflect on his real life. She described a common scene of a mother urging her daughter to marry, when the mother said "you don't want to bring the child, I will bring it", the little fox said to her, but your existence should not be to take me, nor should it be to bring my child, the value of your existence should be yourself.

After saying that, my mom and I cried. I told her that I've always wanted to see you as you, so I want you to see me as me too. Since then, my mother seems to have agreed that people can choose a different path, not necessarily what they become. ”

04

Squeezed vegetables, saccharin and love, and more

In the fast-paced life, people began to call the film and television works of "cooking" "electronic squeezed vegetables" and the sweet idol dramas "industrial saccharin". Squeezed vegetables are not nutritious, saccharin is a hard chemical, and the meaning of idol dramas to people seems to be rapidly eroding.

But for Rosie, who is a mother-fetus solo (referring to never been in love), idol dramas still have quite a heavy meaning. "Sometimes I also need to learn some love-related theories from idol dramas. For example, what exactly is love? How to judge love? Many idol dramas will describe the process of a person who does not understand love gradually knowing what love is, so I can constantly explore what my ideal love is and what kind of person I want to fall in love with. ”

There are still people who can find interest worth sticking to from idol dramas, and Di'er, who spent most of his life with "Huan Zhu", is like this. For her, "Return the Pearl" is supreme idealism. "After passing through firewood, rice, oil and salt, I understand the value of romance. When I was a child, my good friends and I liked to watch "Returning the Pearl", and yearned for the sisterhood between Ziwei and Xiaoyanzi without suspicion and only trust. 'Fall to the ground as a brother, why bother? You see the heart-to-heart, heart-to-heart, heart-to-heart and courage between friends. I am still very glad that I watched "Returning the Pearl" when I was a child, and it influenced me to become a person who values feelings rather than interests. ”

A still from "Huan Zhu Gege"

Cassia also agrees with the value of idol dramas in "growth", "Idol dramas are very related to women's growth, and in dramas other than idol dramas, women are mostly stereotyped marginal characters, so most of my female role models come from works such as idol dramas." "When she encounters setbacks in life and relationships, she will also run to see Xiangqing and explain the character of Kim Sam Soon." I want to make my path and position clearer and more defined. If I watch the video a few more times, will I be as brave as Sanshun? ”

"The good of ancient idol dramas is actually good because its female samples are richer. These women are sometimes not so 'right', but the meaning of their existence is not to 'teach' you how to fall in love and how to be yourself, but to some extent, to enrich our ability to understand ourselves and others. The more we can understand the logic of human nature, the richer the channels and possibilities to our true selves. Parsley and Youqing said.

Ideal love is an inseparable theme of idol dramas, but at a time when "digging wild vegetables" warns everywhere, idol dramas seem to be facing a severe existential crisis. "I have always believed that 'love brain' is a simple and crude label and solidified impression, and should not be characterized by a certain behavior. It is difficult for people to draw a line with the needs of love, but the reason why everyone emphasizes this may be to hope to get a stable return of benefits in a relationship, because the love brain is to guard against 'unrewarded giving'. Rosie said. She once read a report that the Kindles of elite women on the Manhattan subway were originally filled with romance novels such as "Twilight" and "Fifty Shades of Grey". "It turns out that people all over the world are reading romance novels."

"Twilight" stills

"Love is an eternal theme of pop culture, past and present, whether it's idol dramas or other pop culture. It's not so much that people don't believe in love, but that for thousands of years people have been in the tension of yearning for ideal love and the collapse of love reality, and many years ago we had works such as "A Doll's House" and "What Happened After Nala Gone". This reflects that people are always in the process of constructing and deconstructing love. Bamboo salt explained.

In the plain fox's view, the problem may be that there is a lack of a good enough love story at the moment. "The literary and artistic works about love we see now, the logical way may still be stuck in the last century or 2000s, there is no 2023 story, and there are many irrationalities in the story itself. Take Qiong Yao's works, many of the concepts in them are outdated, but she can tell the audience little by little through a large number of dialogues, plots, and small stories, 'He really loves and loves'. We think, 'Well, I don't agree with you, but I can understand you.'" Every era can have Qiong Yao of every era. ”

A still from "Deep Rain"

What kind of love story are we looking forward to seeing on the screen? What Rosie is looking forward to is a "healthy, stereotype-free and non-degrading" love. Di'er hopes to see freedom and equality from idol dramas, "If everyone is like doing business, a few pounds and a few taels, then it will be boring."

"I especially enjoy watching the sincere, warm, and deep interactions between people." Cassia said.

The pictures in the article are partly from Visual China and partly from the Internet

Edit | Xiangyu

Typesetting | Kazama Clear

Keep an eye on the South Wind Window to see more highlights